Publication Date

2015

Document Type

Paper

Keywords

Bias awareness, Big law firms, Equal opportunity for workers

Abstract

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures - especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person on their individual merit. While powerful in dismantling intentional discrimination, these standards rely on an assumption that lawyers are, and have the power to act as, atomistic individuals - a dangerous assumption that has been disproven consistently by the literature establishing the continuing and powerful influence of implicit and institutional bias. Accordingly, difference blindness, which holds all lawyers accountable to seemingly neutral standards, disproportionately disadvantages diverse populations and normalizes the dominance of certain actors - here, white men - by creating the illusion that success or failure depends upon individual rather than structural constraints. In contrast, we argue that a bias awareness approach that encourages identity awareness and a relational framework is a more promising way to promote equality, equity, and inclusion.

Rights Holder

Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

49 pgs

File Size

350 KB

Publication Statement

Copyright held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Publication Title

Fordham Law Review

Volume

83

First Page

2407

Last Page

2455



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